Coronavirus (covid-19): the challenges of public health in the face of a global pandemic

The COVID-19 is the most recently discover of the corona virus which causes respiratory infections consisting of two large scale pandemics MERS & SARS and found to be zoonotic in origin. The disease started from Wuhan´s local seafood market in China and infected 2,761 people. The 2019-nCoV virus isolated from the bronchoalveolar lavage fluid of critically ill patients and have shown it 96% identical to bat coronavirus and bearing same cell entry receptor angiotensin converting enzyme II (ACE2).Corona means crown in Latin and it look like a crown under a microscope. Corona virus causes an infectious disease where most infected people suffered from mild to moderate respiratory illness and recover without requiring special treatment. However, older people and those with underlying medical problems, develop serious illness. It can be prevented by washing the hands or using an alcohol-based to rub them and avoid touching the face. Outbreak is small but unusual, the epidemic is outbreak over a larger geographic area while pandemic spreads to multiple countries. China on 31 December 2019 first informed the world about COVID-19 and WHO declared on 11 March 2020 that COVID-19 can be characterized as a pandemic. Scientists suspected that corona virus originated in a bat and before passing to human hopped to another animal. Japan, USA, France, Australia, Germany, Italy and Spain reported their first case on 16,19,24,25,27,31 and 31 January 2020 respectively. In February new cases were reported by Iran, Pakistan, England on 19,26,28 respectively while in March cases seen in South Africa, Turkey on 5 and 10 respectively. WHO on 11 March 2020 assessed the outbreak as a pandemic. The spread of disease as a pandemic occurred due to movement of carriers outside China. Strict quarantine needed to prevent spread of disease.The code of ethics for social distancing should be defined and strictly implemented. Selling, buying and eating of wildlife animals should be internationally banned.